Why playing the Old Course at St Andrews should be at the top of the beginner's bucket list

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This week marks the third time that the AIG Women's Open has been held at St Andrews and will provide the perfect setting for the ninth and final Grandmaster of golf of the year.

My first visit to the Home of Golf was back in 1986 and it remains, 38 years on, one of my most treasured memories. I can't remember the equipment – I think a friend's father did all the arrangements – but we will play a round on Jubilee, two at Eden and two at Ntsha. On Wednesday we were booked for a round on the Old Course, the most expensive of the quartet at £16, and the plan was to fill the empty Saturday, with a vote, for a second round about the recent Seve setting. Open to victory.

I still look at the Old Course through those 15 year old eyes. I've been back a few times but recent rounds have faded a bit; the first experience was really impressive.

We walked the course in the evening to try to get an idea of ​​its layout as this was decades before the internet. We were close enough to find a course planner between the four of us but none of us had any real ideas and, more worryingly, although none of us had considered this, we had never played a single round of links golf.

The first three days were spent in the sunshine with enough respectable points. We had no intention of doing anything other than a stroke and the scores would start in the low to mid 80s and go up from there.

Our first day at the Old Course was different. Of course we were very nervous and we had kept our favorite diamond jerseys for this event but it was also a lot of fun, which we couldn't solve, which would help us in the back nine.

Opening hole

The beauty of the St Andrews opening shot is that the fairway is over 100 yards wide. The downside of the St Andrews opener is that the fairway is over 100 yards wide. Throw in the R&A's clubhouse, a history dating back to 1764 and a guaranteed crowd of casual spectators looking over your shoulder and there's more than enough to make up for what looks like a large piece of flawless landscape in front of you.

Mention Ian Baker-Finch and The Open and it's not his win at Birkdale in 1991 that they talk about, rather he missed the course four years later and had to reload. There is a first thing we were able to do this Wednesday; months of planning, hitting balls and dreaming of this shot resulted in him being forced to revisit his bag for another ball. I was able to find the fairway and then the green – 5 wood and 6 iron – and continued to not make three putts and keep the ball in play.

The opportunity came for me to hit 40 lashes, a couple of lame ones, and I quietly wondered why so many were being done. Bobby Jones and Sam Snead were very impressed with the place on their first visit and, while my teenage mind didn't go as far as to think it was more straight than I thought, it was actually playable.

What it is. The fear with St Andrews, probably more than any other venue, is that technology and modern firepower will make it more playable. All it needs is the wind and it will quickly become clear that the medium length par 4s that were drives and short irons are no longer available and come back the other way.

We didn't have the skill or nous to keep the ball down, we were missing greens in all the wrong places and we couldn't make caries over different bunkers. Some bunkers are invisible and will appear out of nowhere and we will spend the last two hours of the most anticipated round of our young lives playing backwards in the sand and having absolutely no idea how to stop the ball on any of these double greens.

Three putts were now de rigueur and none of us, despite the bragging rights of the past few days, could get out of the iconic Road Hole in less than six strokes. With my teenage mind now on edge I slightly changed my approach to the last which left me with a 90 foot putt, about three times the length of anything I had faced before, and about four putts. Forty-eight strokes, eight worse than the previous nine, and one of the most humbling golf lessons I've ever had.

Somewhere in the back of my mind the prospect of getting a 5 handicap and becoming an Assistant Pro would not be far off; the trip back to the residence halls was spent pondering a career change.

Its uniqueness

There are other courses that start and end in the middle of town but few can match the role they play over the closing holes. From the 13th onwards the Auld Gray Toon's brilliance becomes more evident and the home run is taken up.

If you're looking for a lower hole look no further than the 3 and move on to the 12. You can make a case for every hole in the area.

No hole really follows another. On a course with 14 par 4s and half a dozen that are close to driving in the right wind, each shot is different. Veterans of this course, who have done endless laps of the area, will tell you how each lap is different.

Parts of it don't really make sense with railroad sheds and mysterious lines despite their overall flatness. And it all ends with a public walkway that crosses a gaping hole that may be 100 yards wide but where your thoughts will be limited to the parked cars that flank the hole at the bottom right.

The constants, however, are amazing and, even if you haven't played The Old Course, these are the pieces that will keep you coming back.

“Walking around town is a very important thing, you can still wear golf and not feel awkward. “You can easily walk into a restaurant with your pins on, your glove in your back pocket, drop your clubs at the front door and nobody will bat an eyelid,” explained Robert Rock, who played two Opens at St Andrews.

We went to the polls that Saturday and the same thing happened as in the first round. If I had known it would take me 27 years to get back here I would have tried to fit everything in more. Then again I could still account for every last shot, which was less than the first one.

Since then I have worked at four Opens, studied at two Dunhill Links and been to stag dos at St Andrews. I will make a detour from any trip just to lay eyes on it and, even in the midst of all my skepticism and mistrust of many aspects of the modern game, I will feel the same as I did that first morning when we arrived in the city at 5am from the London sleeper train.

Famed architect Pat Ruddy says this about the ancient site: “Every time I see St Andrews, it makes me want to cry.”

If you've spent any time at St Andrews, you'll probably feel the same way. If you haven't already put it at the top of your bucket list.

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